1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to edge guides along which the edge of recording media is aligned. The present invention also relates to recording media cassettes having the edge guide and recording media feeding devices, and further relates to recording apparatuses having the recording media cassette and the recording media feeding device, such as printers or facsimile machines.
2. Related Art
Sheet cassettes that are detachably mounted in the main body of an apparatus are commonly used. In particular, JP-A-2006-273565 and JP-A-2007-91445 disclose a detachable sheet cassette (tray) having a dual-container configuration composed of upper and lower sheet containers. A sheet container that stores sheets therein in a recording apparatus is generally called various names, including “cassette”, “tray” and so forth. In the following description, an entire unit that is detachably mounted in the main body of the apparatus is referred to as a “cassette”, while each sheet container that is provided in the cassette is referred to as a “tray”.
In a sheet cassette having a dual-tray configuration as mentioned above, an upper tray is slidably and rotatably movable relative to a lower tray. The sheet cassette can be switched between a state in which the sheets can be fed from the upper tray and a state in which the sheets can be fed from the lower tray by slidably moving the upper tray. Further, a space for storing sheets in the lower tray is opened by turning the upper tray.
With such a dual-tray configuration of a sheet cassette, however, it is not possible to remove the upper tray from the lower tray. Accordingly, it is not always useful for a user who does not frequently use the upper tray, since the upper tray reduces the sheet storing capacity of the lower tray. Further, an additional action to turn the upper tray is necessary when loading sheets into the lower tray.
One solution to the above technical problems is to provide an upper tray that is removable from the lower tray. That is, the sheet storing capacity of the lower tray increases when the upper tray is removed from the lower tray. However, this results in a problem in that a guiding height of the edge guide that is provided on the lower tray is not enough to guide and feed the sheets in an appropriate manner.